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Esports organization Evil Geniuses announced the acquisition of a women’s team “Valorant” on Thursday, becoming the first all-female competitive team in Evil Geniuses history. The new team, formerly Dignitas’ “Valorant” team, will formally debut as Team Evil Geniuses on August 6 at the 2022 Astral Clash Finals in Los Angeles.
“We’re fortunate to have an authentic position in the women’s sports space,” Nicole LaPointe Jameson, CEO of Evil Geniuses, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “The CEO of EG is a woman, over fifty percent of our executives and more, such as directors, vice presidents and C-levels are also women.”
Team template remains unchanged after purchase. It includes Emmalee “EMUHLEET” Garrido (who will continue to serve as team captain), Amanda “rain” Smith, Juliana “Showliana” Maransaldi, Melisa “theia” Mundorff and Stefanie “Stefanie” Jones. They are joined by Christine “potter” Chi, head coach of Evil Geniuses’ original “Valorant” team, who will now oversee both teams.
Evil Geniuses said that both teams should be called EG Valorant, although the new team can be exclusively called EG’s Game Changers. (Game Changers is the women’s regional league of “Valorant”).
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Many prominent sports organizations have quietly left the “Valorant” scene in what has been described as a mass exodus, citing rising costs and a brutally rigorous partnership process. Dozens of esports companies have been vying for the handful of spots available in Riot Games’ overhauled “Valorant” leagues.
The League of Evil Geniuses application at Riot Games included a slide deck, a brochure, and an interactive presentation narrated by Evil Geniuses staff members who were illustrated to look like the characters from “Valorant” . LaPointe Jameson sees “Valorant’s” strong player base and unwavering support from developers as signs of a healthy competitive scene.
“Riot has been a great partner for us on all of our titles,” said LaPointe Jameson. “They have been very good, I think for all the participants in reality, in transparency, evaluating the milestones, the needs. We are very happy with this process as a whole.”
LaPointe Jameson is also interested in helping build the “Valorant” scene from the ground up, especially for underrepresented groups in sports like women. Notably, the first Evil Geniuses Valorant team initially debuted as a mixed gender team led by Chi, who was playing as the team captain at the time. Since then, the staff has been renewed; all its current members are men.
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EG Valorant will join what the organization describes as an athletics program rather than a game program. Instead of putting its players in a team house, Evil Geniuses will base EG Valorant out of the company’s Los Angeles facility, where they’ll have access to subsidized housing, fitness, nutrition and data-driven coaching.
Evil Geniuses’ first priority with the team will be getting to know them, which LaPointe Jameson said is essential to victory. “Rating” players on both Evil Geniuses teams receive a personalized assessment to identify areas of growth. This could be anything from more in-depth training for a player’s team role, improving intra-personal communication, or confidence-building programs. Once that’s done, Evil Geniuses has its sights set on the top.
“We will set reasonable milestones for placement,” LaPointe Jameson said. “But we won’t be satisfied until we’re number one in the league.”